There are at least five or six, commonly used standard sizes of vials commonly used by the pharmaceutical industry. The size of the vial employed is dependent upon the size and quantity of pills to be dispensed in the vial. Hence, it is necessary to produce a range of differently sized vials. Currently, it is necessary to also produce a number of differently sized caps for sealing each of the respective, differently sized, vials. That is, separate sizes of caps are required for sealing specific sizes of vials, with larger diameter caps required for sealing larger vials, and smaller caps required for sealing smaller vials. Accordingly, separate production lines are required for manufacturing each of the differently sized caps. This results in significant expenditure, with each cap production line requiring its own separate tooling investment in molds, plant floor space, operating personnel, and inventories. Also, pharmacists must currently maintain an inventory of differently sized caps for use with respective, differently sized containers or vials.
Hence, it is desirable to provide a cap and vial system which allows a single cap to be used interchangeably with different sizes of vials. This would substantially reduce the amount of storage space required for pharmacists and also substantially reduce the inventory requirements. Additionally, in the pharmaceutical industry it is required in many applications that drugs be dispensed in capped vials which are child-proof, i.e. require complex cap manipulation to release the cap from the vial. However, many consumers such as elderly or arthritic persons cannot perform the requisite complex cap manipulations, and many other consumers need not be concerned with a child tampering with the vial. For these consumers the requirement of repeating the requisite complex cap manipulation upon each cap removal occasion is unnecessarily burdensome. Accordingly, a reversible cap has been developed which engages with the vial on one side of the cap in a child-proof engagement, with the cap being reversible to engage with the vial on the other side of the cap in a non-child-proof, and easy-opening engagement. Such a reversible cap is shown in Morris U.S. Pat. No. Re. 29,779. Hence, it is desirable to provide an interchangeable cap and vial system which employs a cap having the aforementioned reversibility characteristics which can be used with different sizes of vials.